Nobel Peace Laureate, Mairead Maguire, calls for Britain to stop breaking national and international law by selling arms

Nobel Peace Laureate, Mairead Maguire, calls for Britain to stop breaking national and international law by selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Britain has sold £2.8 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia since the Saudi Government began its bombing campaign in Yemen last year. The British Government is also providing direct military assistance to Saudi Arabia and continues to remain silent on the UN reports of Saudi war crimes against the civilian population of Yemen. Thousands of people have died and millions of Yemeni people are going hungry and thousands of children are out of school as their schools, homes and towns have been destroyed in the course of the ongoing bombing of Yemen by the Saudi government and military.

Maguire called on people in the UK to write to their MP to encourage them to sign the Early Day Motion 1170 and support the implementation of the European Parliament’s call for an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia. Maguire also called on the Saudi Government to stop its bombing of Yemen and enter into dialogue and negotiations to solve the terrible human tragedy of Yemen and its people. She said: ‘People have the power to stop arms going to Governments who use them to carry out invasions and occupations and war against other countries. We have a moral and ethical responsibility to do all we can to stop WAR and arms sales and end the Military Industrial Complex which destroys people’s lives and environments and causes millions of people to flee from their homes to find safety in other countries, such as UK, Europe, etc. We know sending Arms and war to other countries means more and more refugees, we have witnessed this on our television screens – it is time to end this madness of militarism and war wherever we live.’